


Silver

by Kalypso



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:15:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik follows a trail of vibrating metal to the kitchen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ginbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginbitch/gifts).



> I did spend some time looking up the official backstories of Erik and Charles, which in the X-Men Comicverse seem to be very detailed but don't necessarily fit well with what we saw in _X-Men: First-Class_. But it appears that continuity between the various forms of the X-Men saga is notoriously difficult, so I decided I'd just pick the bits that suited me and didn't appear to contradict what happened in that film, though of course the imminent _X-Men: Days of Future Past_ may change that.

Somewhere in the house, someone was _doing_ something with metal. It was a faint but insistent vibration; it shouldn't have been enough to keep Erik awake, but he was on edge already as the showdown with Schmidt approached, impatience to finish off his enemy fighting doubts about his strength.

Rubbing. Someone was rubbing metal. Occasional pauses, then it started again. Erik gave up trying to ignore it, got out of bed, and pulled on a dressing-gown. He followed the trail, down the stairs, along a corridor... Charles had told him once how he'd done the same as a boy, hearing noises downstairs, following them to the kitchen to find someone who looked like his mother but turned out to be Raven: the first time the two met. Treading in those footsteps, Erik found himself walking into the same kitchen.

Charles was sitting at a table - he was sure it was Charles, not Raven in disguise - with newspapers spread across it, and a pile of cutlery in front of him. He had a can of silver polish, and was applying it to a spoon with a rag. 

He looked up at Erik and smiled. "Hullo. I hope I didn't wake you."

"I could feel you rubbing the silver."

"Your secret's out. You're a genie, and if I rub a silver spoon you have to grant me three wishes."

Erik snorted. "You wish." He walked over to the refrigerator to look for some milk.

Charles laughed. "Thank you, I will. I wish you'd devise a test for Alex - see which metals he can melt. Might be useful if we need to blast our way in somewhere."

"I'll think about it. What _are_ you doing?"

Charles waved a fork. "I noticed the silver was looking dull. It's not Mrs Trainor's fault - I think she cleans it every year, but we arrived unexpectedly, and she's had her hands full cooking for seven."

Erik sat down at the table and picked up another fork. "You could have asked me. It's easy enough, rearranging the surface atoms..." The silver rippled in his hand, and shone brightly under the kitchen light.

"No... it's all right," said Charles. "I like cleaning silver. It reminds me of my father. One rainy day, he sat me down in here, explained about oxidation and showed me how removing tarnish works."

"Are these your father's initials?" Erik studied the letters CFX engraved on the fork handle in a cursive script.

"No, that's _his_ father. Charles Francis Xavier, like me. My father was Brian Vernon. I thought he should have his own set, marked BVX. But he liked these; they'd come with him from England."

"How old were you?"

"When the Xaviers came to America? I wasn't born then."

"No, when your father died."

"Oh." Charles started rubbing the cleaning fluid off a serving spoon. "Eleven. There was an explosion at the lab. What about you?"

"A little older. As far as I know... we were separated on our way to the camp. I never discovered the details, but he didn't survive."

Odd, that they'd both lost their fathers about the same time. And their mothers, soon after. He'd always thought Charles's childhood privileged, but even being born with - how did they put it? - a silver spoon in your mouth didn't protect you from everything.

"Is it significant? Your research... does it show whether parental loss advances the mutation?"

"Perhaps," said Charles. "I didn't have a sufficiently large sample for meaningful results until recently, and there hasn't been much time for research here. But this group... there does seem to be a recurring factor of some kind of childhood trauma. Raven's family rejected her altogether, of course."

"But wasn't that because she was showing signs of mutation already?" asked Erik.

"They didn't like the fact that she was turning blue. She seems to have developed the shape-shifting in a desperate attempt to placate them, but they found that just as alienating." He sighed. "They couldn't accept it's not her fault she looks odd."

"Raven looks fine. Use your intelligence, Charles. Being blue isn't a fault; it's who she is."

Charles frowned. "No, I don't think so. No more than being white with brown hair is who we are. And you're not just a man who controls metal. Look at the fork, Erik. It's silver on the surface. But, as I'm sure you can tell..."

"It's silverplated. A copper alloy underneath."

"Yes. But what is it really? A fork. It doesn't matter what it's made of when you're eating with it. And it doesn't matter what colour Raven is when you know her. She's a person. My sister."

"A fellow-mutant."

"If you insist. But she'd still be Raven if she weren't."

"Raven, maybe. But not your sister. You chose her as a sister, didn't you? In this kitchen, when you were children. Why?"

"I didn't want her to be alone. I could see how lonely she was..."

"And so were you. She was the first fellow-mutant you saw, and you claimed her as family; you made your human family adopt her. You longed for the company of mutants as much as she did, and you still do. What you said to me when we first met: _you're not alone_. You know, however reluctantly, that _we_ are a brotherhood, and the humans are not, cannot be part of it."

Charles's hand clenched round a fork. "But your parents, Erik. Revenge. Shaw. You've hunted a mutant across the world, trying to punish him for killing your mother - your human mother."

"Yes." Erik furrowed his brow. "She wasn't a mutant. But she accepted everything I was. _Alles ist gut._ I failed her because my mutation wouldn't manifest when I needed it. My last human error."

"She forgave you," Charles said quietly. "I wish you'd forgive yourself."

There was a long pause.

"Sorry, can't do that one," said Erik. "But I can do this."

And he handed Charles a fork, with the initials BVX engraved in shining silver.


End file.
